He ain't heavy, he's my Jaeger

Rating: Null/10 (17 March 2015)

"Everything is equal. We have no borders between robots and people. In the foreign stories, robots are always the enemies. In Japan, they're our friends." - Osamu Kozaki
Japan's obsession with robots stretches back to the 1950s, when robot mangas like "Astro Boy" and "Tetsujin-28" became popular. Inspired by the US fire-bombings of Japan, and influenced by everything from Frankenstein, to 17th century karakuri puppets, to Sengoku-era samurai armour, to WW2-era hardware, to the Shinto belief that "everything has a soul", these robots would spawn countless animated television series, most notably "Giant Robo", "Voltron", "Gundam Suit", "Robotech", "Evangelion" and "Mazinga Z", the latter of which was very popular in Mexico during the 1980s.
Mexico during the 1980s also happened to be where a young Guillermo del Toro lived. He devoured these robot cartoons, a childhood feast which would inspire his own Giant Robot Feature, "Pacific Rim".
Released in 2013, "Pacific Rim" stars Charlie Hunnan as Raleigh Becket, a hotshot Jaeger pilot. Giant nuclear powered robots, Jaeger's are humanity's last line of defence against the Kaijus, colossal beasts who attack Earth via portals deep within the Pacific Ocean. As the neural load of Jaeger's is too dangerous for a lone pilot to handle, each Jaeger is piloted by two psychically linked pilots, a concept dubbed "drifting".
Tonally, "Pacific Rim" is unlike most modern blockbusters. Directed by every boy's inner child, Guillermo's film knows its a ridiculous cartoon but nevertheless adopts a sincere, straight-faced stance. Elsewhere the film's carnage is undercut by "Rim's" warmhearted subplots, in which feuding pilots learn to work together, put differences aside and "drift in the same direction". That this direction amounts to collaborative warfare is something Guillermo, an outspoken pacifist, can't avoid, but he nevertheless strips his film of all the war-porn tropes which usually bog down similar films.
"Pacific Rim" was a box-office dud in the United States, a country which likes its anime re-packaged a certain way ("The Matrix", "Edge of Tomorrow", "Inception", "Black Swan" etc). Guillermo del Toro mostly doesn't abide by these cosmetic conventions, his film light but never flippant, unpretentious, devoid of unnecessary subplots/dialogue masquerading as "depth", and free of all the usual totems of Americana. Perhaps because of this, the film was a massive hit in Japan and China.
Aesthetically, "Rim's" also a bit unique. Guillermo's Godzilla-battles take place amidst giant waves, his behemoths covered in sea-spray, knee-deep in roiling rain-spattered oceans, their chassis lit by kaleidoscopic purples, blues and pinks. The film's creature designs and fisticuffs are also better than average for this genre, complete with elbow rockets, plasma cannons and gigantic brass knuckles. The film co-stars Idris Elba. Its butt-kicking electro-metal score, by Ramin Djawadi, signals Guillermo's premise with capital letters: HERE THERE BE GIANT ROBOTS PUNCHING GIANT ALIENS IN THE FACE.
8/10 – See "The Host" (2006).